City council abolishes most committees, holds off on ad hoc process until a later date

Ridgecrest's city council modified one agenda item abolishing standing committees and tabled another that would allow it to establish ad hoc committees at its meeting Wednesday following a lengthy discussion.

Ridgecrest's city council modified one agenda item abolishing standing committees and tabled another that would allow it to establish ad hoc committees at its meeting Wednesday following a lengthy discussion.

The move to dissolve nearly all standing committees came after the council agreed at one point that it would save staff time and money to the city in the long run. In place of normal committees, Ridgecrest would establish as-needed ad hoc committees to handle matters of infrastructure, quality of life or economic development.

Until Wednesday, the city had five committees: Quality of Life, Community Development, Infrastructure, City Organization and ACTION, a school-oriented committee.

The first item, a resolution to abolish standing committees. was pulled for discussion to address the wording to abolish committees.

“The logic in this seems faulty to me, in that your standing committees do simply do not meet if they have no business to discuss,” Neel said.

Regardless of some concern from a few community members, the council voted 4-0 on an amended resolution that abolished all standing committees except ACTION. The council also modified the resolution to remove establishing ad hoc committees, leaving room for a debate on the subject.

Addressing ad hoc concerns

When the council came around to discussing the establishment of ad hoc committees, several concerns emerged from both council members and city residents.

Clark proposed setting up two ad hoc committees to handle pressing issues like budget, infrastructure, abandoned or empty buildings and other items that affected the community.

Acton put in her two cents about the idea, especially those ad hoc committees dealing with the city budget. She added that budget updates are provided frequently by Rachelle McQuiston, the city finance director.

“We get budget updates every month from Rachelle, so I see no reason why it should even be part of an ad hoc committee when we can talk about it at full council,” Acton said.

Page 2 of 2 - She said unless one item needed to be addressed in depth by a committee, most things could be discussed at the council level so everyone could be clued in at the same time. Most committees only have two council members due to California's Brown Act.

Councilman Jim Sanders agreed with Acton, saying that any issue that did not need to be handled by the full council could be fulfilled by monthly reports made by department heads and made public.

“The only item that would seem to need an ad hoc committee is the discussion of a parks assessment district because that is a finite project,” Sanders said.

Vice Mayor Chip Holloway said matters of any ad hoc committees should be determined by city staff.

“Our goal as a council is not to run the city, our goal is to set a vision,” Holloway said.

Resident Ronald Porter brought up a valid point that the process for forming an ad hoc committee needed more fine tuning.

“We need to look at how you would form an ad hoc committee and also putting a definitive nature of what they will discuss and how they will interact with the public,” Porter said.

Steven Morgan, a candidate for the vacant council spot, said that the council was backwards in the process of establishing ad hoc committees and asked that it be tabled. Morgan also asked if the rationale for ad hoc committees was driven by limited staff time, why not put it in city staff's hands.

“That is where the ad hoc power should be, with the staff and not at the council level,” Morgan said. “Let staff do this because you are trying to save them time and aggravation. The staff know for items of importance how to move forward with an ad hoc committee, get information and bring it back to council.”

Morgan added that city staff should be the ones to determine the process for forming an ad hoc committee and come back to council at a later time.

After brief discussion, the council agreed and directed City Manager Dennis Speer to come up with suggestions for an ad hoc committee process.